


A Bill Too Big for Your Purse

by valderys



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: Community: talechallenge25, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-19
Updated: 2010-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-06 11:35:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valderys/pseuds/valderys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam contemplates Ted Sandyman.  A vignette.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bill Too Big for Your Purse

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2006. This is the starter Marigold gave me 'Write a story including Ted Sandyman that takes place from just prior to the Travellers coming into Hobbiton, and continues after they have gone up to Bag End.' The story doesn't take things as far as suggested – this is more like a moment in time :) Sam's POV.

It were too much.

Sam's heart was beating hard, his blood thundering in his ears. His face was still wet with tears, and his chest was heaving for breath, after all the shouting he'd done at Ted Sandyman. Such a person to lose his temper with, after all they'd seen and endured. Such a little straw it was, to bring the whole bale tumbling down. What had he been thinking?

Sam stared at Ted, as first Mr Frodo spoke quiet-like to him, and then Mr Merry as spoke all roused and brazen, like a flame that's been lit and won't give over burning now on just anyone's say so. And that was another thing. Why was it Mr Merry as had taken over here, now they were back at home? Why wasn't Mr Frodo doing what was right and proper, and receiving the credit that that he should – leading his people forward like he should be, here in Hobbiton. He was the Master on the Hill, its true master, not some jumped up jack-a-napes that thinks he can be called Boss just because he has a lot of coin, and even more cheek?

It were all too much.

Unwillingly, Sam's eyes were drawn back to what had started this, or, well, maybe not started this, but finished it, maybe. The last thing Sam had expected to see, worse almost than all the black and burning images he'd seen in Lady Galadriel's mirror, because this one was real. As real as the soil between his toes, or the weight of the mail on his back. The party tree, all cut down, forlorn and broken in its field, and that was somehow more terrible than anything. Worse than seeing Bagshot Row a gaping gravel pit (although that were bad enough), worse than seeing the destroyed hedgerows, the tarred sheds where the Old Grange ought to be. Worse than anything. Because that tree had always seemed so eternal, so unchangeable. And it reminded Sam of old Mr Bilbo, and the Elves, and how they had always seemed so unchangeable too, when he was a lad. Except that now Sam knew they weren't, no more than that there tree. Elves could die, and Mr Bilbo could get old, and even their friend Legolas could hear a gull crying on the wind and find his heart moved in strange and peculiar new ways.

And here was Mr Frodo, looking more fragile by the day, when by rights he ought to be getting stronger, and instead being faced with all this _ruin_. It weren't right, it weren't right at all. Mr Frodo oughtn't be having to face this, and to listen to impertinences from the likes of Ted Sandyman; he should be looking forward to warming his feet on the grate in the Ivy Bush, or thinking about popping out for a nice ale or two at the Green Dragon, or deciding which of his cousins to visit with first. He ought to be thinking about going home.

But as Sam looked at Ted with his heart overflowing so much he couldn't even speak, and watched him nip inside this monstrous new-fangled contraption of a mill to fetch his horn, it occurred to Sam that maybe that was the worst of all. He'd wanted Mr Frodo to come home, he'd wanted them all to come home – when it seemed that they didn't really even have a home to come back to. And Sam stood stunned as he thought about it. None of them did, really. Here was Bagshot Row all dug up, and Mr Frodo had sold Bag End afore he went, so really even his own garden (that weren't ever his own, but Sam knew what he meant) was really his no more. And there was Mr Pippin all bright-eyed and grown-up, and would he even be recognisable as the same care-free lad that walked away singing a year ago? Would his parents trace his scars with wondering fingers, and let him be? Or would Mr Pippin find the old assumptions chafing, and discover that his childhood had ended, but that no-one else had noticed? Even Mr Merry, tall and lordly, with all of Buckland waiting for him, might find things changed, what with him having gone off without a word, and coming back now, still all unheralded, with that shadow in his eyes, and a hand that remained cold to the touch?

Had home really changed that much? Had Sam himself changed too? Was it all lost? He found himself wanting to grab for dear Mr Frodo's hand, for what, he did not know. Reassurance? He was no babe to need his hand held, nor even himself in the deserts and despairs of Mordor, when such liberties would have been a welcome touch of warmth. He was Samwise Gamgee come home again, that's what he was, and he was sturdy on his feet, and would face this, as he'd faced everything else the quest had thrown at him. And besides – a-holding of Mr Frodo's hand would only remind him of other things that had been damaged, and he didn't want to weep no more. He didn't. He didn't.

And there was Ted Sandyman, whose eyes were bulging from the blowing of his horn – such a thin and feeble sound compared to Mr Merry's – and he was all dirty and black. All little and wizened, or so it seemed, and Sam thought about the last time he'd seen Ted, in the Green Dragon, wiping his mouth free of ale and laughing about his betters. Explaining how the world wasn't changed, or dangerous, and how walking trees weren't real, were children's tales, and you shouldn't listen to your Halfast, Sam, there's no elm trees on the North Moors, stands to reason. That's no more than you know, Ted Sandyman, thought Sam, no more than you know, but I do, and so do my friends.

He looked at him, and looked at him, and it was a wonder how much Ted reminded Sam of the recent past. He thought, we were like that, me and Mr Frodo. Creeping about, black and wizened, under the yoke of the Eye. We were like that, but we succeeded in our task, and crawled out of there, and were carried home under the wings of eagles. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Master Ted high-and-mighty Sandyman.

And then Sam thought, look at us now, all of us, in our splendid coats, and mail upon our backs, so fine we look – we've never looked so well even in party clothes. See what we can come back from, Ted? See how the damage and the fear can be overcome? See how we can fight? And maybe that was something he should have seen a long time ago, but it seemed like another wonder to him, then, in that moment, with those tears still damp upon his cheeks, and the taste of salt in his mouth.

But the mail was only another kind of disguise, no more true than the nasty orc garb they'd donned all those months ago. No more true to anything that Sam really held dear. He knew he'd take it all off as quick as quick when the time came, when they could afford to lay it all by and just live as hobbits again. And then what would he be? No more an Adventurer, and certainly not any kind of hero. He'd just be plain old Sam Gamgee once more, with maybe a bit of decent hobbit-sense to be going along with, and a certain way with potatoes (although not as good as his Da, not by a long chalk).

And the Shire? Well, perhaps you could say the same for the land. When this mess was over they'd be wounds to tend and repairs to undertake, but grain would still be grown in the fields, and apples would still ripen on the branch. That hadn't changed, after all. It would take a lot more than their small troubles before that would ever change. Trees could be replanted. Smials rebuilt. The Shire could crawl out from under its own darkness, and learn to soar with wings of eagles too. Couldn't it? Anyway, it were a darn sight better thing to hope for than just rolling yourself over into the grease and the muck, like a dog fawning for a cruel master. Like that pinched face in front of him had done, and revelled in it too.

But he felt sorry for Ted, despite all that, Sam thought, too melancholy to feel the revelation. He felt sorry for him, because he'd always be bowed into the dirt. Sam had won his own battles, and he was going to fight for the Shire until they had victory here too, more than likely. And then he'd hold his head up high, because he'd know that they'd done what was proper. But what would Ted have? What would Ted have, when they'd put the Shire all to rights again?

They'd crawled out from under the Yoke of the Eye, him and Mr Frodo. But he'd be forever crawling, would Ted Sandyman. He'd be forever crawling under a pitiless sky, and there wouldn't be no eagles for him.

And that was sad, Sam reckoned. That was as sad as anything.


End file.
